I've heard this place described as pretty romantic. I don't know if I'd use those words to describe the place. Its really really dark. It's also really loud -- there's no background music or anything -- wouldn't be the place to go if you were looking to have a quiet dinner. The place is in a basement, but its kind of like at street level so its not like your in a dungeon or something. The place is set up with two rooms. There's like a food preparation area in the first room and some tables there as well -- i think this is like the VIP section; the other room has a bunch of tables. I think they were going for a grotto/cantina look to the place. Given the dimly limit rooms I'd say they nailed the look they were going after.
The crowd looks to differ by sitting. The early sitting was more like 40-50-ish, but the second sitting tended to be younger (30s, but not much younger than that). A lot of couples, but there were some women in groups of 2's and 3' s in the place as well.
We had a waiter. He looked like he was a professional. He had good answers to questions and made some good suggestions. They also had this old Italian cougar walking around the place in a low cut lime green top. I don't know what her job was.
They have a good wine list, but this place is not going to be cheap. They do have some house wine which is priced really well and is quite good. We had the house chardonnay ($55 a litre) and it was quite good. If you're on a budget I'd say you can't go wrong with the house wines.
The menu is kind of extensive. They have a lot salads and grilled stuff to start and a lot of the pasta dishes come in starter and main size. For the mains you can pick from the pasta, meat (primarily veal), chicken, fish and risotto sections. The risottos here are for two people and take like 45 minutes to prepare. I've heard that these guys are hardcore when it comes to risotto -- it's probably their signature dish.
I had the grilled mushrooms to start. They were quite tasty. It came with a giant porto bello at the bottom and a few other varieties on top. The guy across from me had this smoked salmon penne, which came in rosey sauce that also had a smokey taste to it. There were also some good comments made about the buffalo milk mozzarella caprese. For my main I had the misto di mare, which was some scallops, calamari and salmon fillet. It comes on a bed of argula with assorted other greens. The calamari was grilled with a little charring, which actually complemented the balsamic vinegar in the accompaniment. The scallops and the salmon was cocked just right -- so it wasn't charred. This dish was great. With a little lemon juice it was light and refreshing. The only complaint I would have is that there is too much balsamic vinegar -- so it makes it hard to enjoy the wine after a while because all you can taste is vinegar.
They have a good selection of deserts. I tried a bit of the pecan pie and it was pretty good. There were some favourable comments made about the chocolate mousse and the molten chocolate cake. I had a cappuccino and it was prepared quite well. This is an Illy coffee shop.
In terms of price point, this place is not cheap. Two litres of house wine, 3 starters, 4 mains, 3 deserts and 3 coffees came out to like $380 or so.
Overall, this is place is pretty good. The food is not like going to a culinary experience, but its pretty simple food that's prepared well and they don't use cheap ingredients. They also do the little things right -- like make good coffee and offer you a selection of good table wines.
Rating: 1 Bunny
Notes on the Bunny Rating System:
- 0 or no Bunnies, it's a waste of time; don't go.
- 1 Bunny, the place is worth checking out.
- 2 Bunnies, you should go out of your way to check out the place; the food is really good and the place is cool.
- 3 Bunnies, you absolutely have to go there; the food is exceptional and the place is really cool
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